TFT writes Editorial on Pakistan Elections
The people of Pakistan have posed an existential challenge to the five political parties - the PPP, PMLN, MQM, PTI and ANP - that define and dominate the country's political system. How these parties rise or fall will determine not just their own future but also that of Pakistan.
The PPP has been reduced from being a populist anti-establishment national party to a pro-establishment regional party. The challenge before it in the next five years is to rise like a phoenix from the ashes and reinvent itself as a mainstream contender for power under a dynamic new leadership. This is no mean task, given the paucity of leaders and ideas in the party. After leaving the Presidency in September, Mr Asif Zardari is expected to make way for Bilawal Bhutto. But the lad won't be ready to don the mantle of the sole spokesman for many years. Worse, because of continuing neglect and sore disappointment, the ideological PPP voter, rich or poor, has drifted into the camp of the PMLN and PTI in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Wooing it back won't be easy.
The PMLN has been upgraded from being a pro-establishment conservative Punjab party into a populist, even anti-establishment, national ruling party with alliance partners in every province. The unprecedented challenge before it in the next five years is to reinvent Pakistan via a paradigm change in economy and national security. This will require wisdom and vision, both of which are in short supply in the rank and file of the party. Unfortunately, evidence of appropriate new recruits to instill new ideas is thin on the ground. It is a moot question, therefore, how the old guard will cope with the harsh new realities. The PMLN will also have to learn how to work productively with the military instead of trying to undermine it or being undermined by it. In order to do this it will have to fashion new institutional mechanisms for dialogue on policy and implementation in unchartered waters.
The MQM faces the prospect of internal division on account of a loss of confidence in the ability of Altaf Hussain to lead the party from precarious exile in London and political displacement on account of the rise of the PTI in the upper middle class areas of Karachi. Indeed, its participation in a provincial government in Sindh on its own terms as in the past is by no means certain while it will certainly not be part of the ruling alliance in Islamabad. If its militant writ was earlier challenged by the influx of ethnic Pakhtuns and Afghans into Karachi over the last decade, its electoral footprint has been trampled over by the passionate youth of the PTI. The challenge before it is to elect a new leadership that abandons the path of violence and blackmail and dedicates itself to true and accountable service of the people.
Courtesy: Weekly The Friday Times, Lahore
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